Tiempo Climate Newswatch

"This is the most effective and least expensive way to safeguard the environment," said Jens Stoltenberg, Norwegian prime minister, as he signed a US$1 billion agreement to prevent deforestation in Brazil. The agreement covers the first contribution to the Amazon Fund, set up by the Brazilian government in August this year. The new fund aims to raise US$21 billion over 13 years for conservation and sustainable development.

"The Amazon Fund breaks new ground because money is only paid out if deforestation is actually halted," commented Lars Løvold from the Rainforest Foundation. Payments will be dependent on assessments of annual deforestation rates based on satellite data. Norway and Brazil will also cooperate in research and development in the areas of forest surveillance and carbon emissions assessment.

Richard Blakeway, environmental advisor to Boris Johnson, London's mayor, has recommended promoting green roofs to demonstrate the city's commitment to environmental protection in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. "The mayor has very much put green roofs at the centre of his [climate change] adaptation policy and his city greening policy," he said. With energy use reduced due to the increase in insulation, one scheme in Canary Wharf is saving over £5,000 a year, he reported. The city of Sydney, in Australia, is developing guidelines and planning controls for green roofs.

Lighter colours for roofs, which would increase the amount of solar radiation reflected back to space, is the recommendation of a team of researchers in the United States. "The potential energy savings in the United States is in excess of US$1 billion annually," said California energy commissioner Art Rosenfeld, part of a team from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. From 2009, new residences and retrofit constructions in California will have to have "cool-coloured" roofs.

The Antarctic ozone hole is larger in 2008 than in the previous year but it is not expected to exceed the size reached in 2006, reports the World Meteorological Organization. By September 13, the hole covered an area of 27 million square kilometers.

International efforts under the Montreal Protocol have succeeded in reducing atmospheric concentrations of the most harmful ozone-depleting chemicals and, notwithstanding variability from year to year, recent data suggest that ozone levels in the upper atmosphere have stabilized. Marking the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, Ban Ki-moon, United Nations secretary-general, warned that global economic adversity should not divert attention away from the need to protect the environment. "Safeguarding the planet has often been seen as a luxury, and as a burden on economic recovery and development," he said. "But the remarkable story of the ozone layer... shows such thinking for what it is: mere myth."